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Moscow says not responsible for spat with the West

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov speaks during a meeting with his Bangladeshi counterpart Abul Hassan Mahmud Ali in Moscow, Russia April 2, 2018. REUTERS/Sergei Karpukhin

MOSCOW (Reuters) - How far a row escalates between Moscow and the West over the poisoning of a former Russian spy in Britain does not depend on Russia, its Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told a news briefing on Monday. In times of cold war there were some rules, but now Britain and the United States had dropped all propriety and were playing children's games, he said. Russia has denied responsibility for the March 4 attack on ex-spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in the English city of Salisbury. (Reporting by Maria Kiselyova and Christian Lowe, writing by Denis Pinchuk; editing by John Stonestreet)